About the Film
Bluegrass journeyman Wade Hill spent forty years on the road, living hard but his own way, realizing brilliant show business dreams beside his musical heroes. A banjo prodigy in East Tennessee at age 13, Wade’s life has played out on stage in bright colors and wild sounds, across thousands of blurry miles, each one measuring a rare story. His path has been marked with a dozen or more albums with as many bands, hundreds of festivals and concerts, countless radio appearances, and two regional TV shows bearing his name.
But today his ramble is stilled. Following the recent deaths of his mother, common-law wife, and father, Wade now endures the absence of those he held closest. Grounded back in Knoxville in the aftermath of these losses, as his own health regresses too, Wade’s nomadic career has slipped from its course. With his future uncertain, Wade counters the struggles with a manic expressive force, pulling his music in original directions while also exploring a new altered-state visual art, with his legendary persona as muse.
Still, he is like a ghost now, suddenly alone in his empty and broken home of fifty years, where archival shards from his early life and musical past haunt every quiet room. This troubled shelter is all Wade has left, a familiar if failing safe harbor, with each old brick and board more a family member than a physical form. But it too is not long to last. Now in his lowest moment, Wade is forced to dodge the bank as it forecloses on the Hill house, this last place that knows him well. Stripped of it all, Wade is forced to start again, or, perhaps, not at all.
